Lightning strikes during a storm over the Ionian Sea in Calabria, Italy on June 27, 2016. (Photo by Alfonso Di Vincenzo/Pacific Press/Rex Features)

In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Turkish guard police take special training, lasting 316 hours, for carrying out their job at best at Police Training Center Directorate of Guarding Training Academy of Turkiye on June 1, 2022. in Ankara, Turkiye. (Photo by Evrim Aydin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

British troops covered in flames from a petrol bomb thrown during a violent protest by job seekers, who say they were promised employment in the security services, in the southern Iraq city of Basra, March 22, 2004. (Photo by Atef Hassan/Reuters)

An air plane takes off from the airport as air traffic is effected by the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Frankfurt, Germany, March 16, 2020. (Photo by Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

Israeli police officers are about to push away a demonstrator during a protest against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside his residence in Jerusalem, Israel, early Sunday, August 9, 2020. (Photo by Ariel Schalit/AP Photo)

These friends enjoying a night out in the West Yorkshire city beamed for the cameras as they waved Union flags during the Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee celebrations on June 4, 2022. (Photo by Nb press ltd)

Young devotees carry oil lamps in the early morning of the tenth day celebrations of Hindu Nepali festival “Dashain” at a temple in Bhaktapur on the outskirts of Kathmandu on October 24, 2023. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)